Energy glut takes toll on western coffers
"With oil backing up behind full pipelines and Canadian energy companies selling their most lucrative product at large discounts, corporate earnings are tumbling far below expectations."

Chinese police plan to board ships in disputed seas
"Police in the southern Chinese island province of Hainan will board and search ships which enter into what China considers its territorial waters in the disputed South China Sea, state media said on Thursday, a move which could raise tensions further."

"Given the hullabaloo about rising energy production in the U.S., you would think that the IEA report was loaded with good news about the world's future oil supply. No such luck. In fact, on a close reading anyone who has the slightest familiarity with world oil dynamics should shudder, as its overall emphasis is on decline and uncertainty."

## Infrastructure scavenging ##NC Metal Thieves Turning Into Graverobbers In Rural Areas
"In addition to the manhole covers, fire hydrants, catalytic converters, street signs, and other items being stolen in the cities by metal thieves, rural areas across North Carolina are now being hit as well."

Obama Urged to Declare Emergency for Mississippi River
"Shippers and lawmakers are pressuring President Barack Obama to declare a federal emergency along the Mississippi River, citing potential 'catastrophic consequences' in the Midwest if barge traffic is curtailed by low water on the nation's busiest waterway."Sales of New U.S. Homes Fell 0.3% in October
"Builders in the U.S. sold fewer new homes than forecast in October and purchases were revised down for the prior month, highlighting the hurdles facing a rebound in the industry at the heart of the financial crisis."

OECD warns of further weakness in Europe
"Europe's economy will contract next year and the United States will see slower growth than previously forecast, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development warned Tuesday."

"Li admitted that most of China's airports are now running at a loss. Of the 180 airports China had in 2011, 130 were in the red, with a combined deficit of about 2 billion yuan. In a recent report, the Beijing Evening News said that almost all of the country's feeder airports are posting losses."

US Can Deter and Contain Iran, Brzezinski Says
"Former White House national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski said Monday [Nov. 26] that the United States has 'no implicit obligation to follow like a stupid mule' an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear sites and that a US or an Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic would be 'the worst option' should negotiations fail."

U.S. to raise passport map issue with China
"The United States will raise concerns with China over a new map in Chinese passports which details claims to disputed maritime territory, alarming some of its Southeast Asian neighbors, the State Department said on Tuesday."

## Global unrest/mob rule/angry people/torches and pitchforks ##Bahrain police break up march after Ashura memorial service
"Bahraini security forces used tear gas and stun grenades to scatter hundreds of youths who tried to march towards the centre of the capital on Monday after annual Ashura services marking one of the holiest days in the Shi'ite Muslim calendar."

Chinese bus drivers in Singapore in rare labor protest
" At least 100 Chinese bus drivers in Singapore refused to go to work on Monday to protest against changes to their employment terms, media said, in a rare show of defiance in a city-state where industrial action is almost unheard of."

Passengers attack railway offices (Pakistan)
"A violent protest was sparked at the cantonment railway station on Monday, as almost every passenger train scheduled to leave Karachi was delayed for hours due to an acute shortage of fuel."

A longish but quite interesting article. The originator of the idea is right to stick by his principles and keep everything as simple and unmechanized as possible. The high-tech version, on the other hand, is doomed to fail, as none of this will work for long in a collapsing economy. One other really big problem is that there is virtually no market in the desert, which means that the produce will have to be shipped to cities in refrigerated trucks. Also, nutrients and other supplies have to be trucked in. How sustainable does that sound? The key to food production is to stick with systems that are low-tech and do not rely on the industrial economy. -- RF

Unlike high-tech greenhouses, it's low-tech, and is completely free of the industrial economy. Here is a valuable component of the system we need to ensure we are eating even when the supermarkets close. -- RF

"Kill switches are a standard part of most smartphones, tablets, and e-readers. Google, Apple (AAPL), and Amazon (AMZN) all have the ability to reach into devices to delete illicit content or edit code without users' permission."

Extra budget must top 5 trillion yen
"A supplementary budget exceeding 5 trillion yen is needed for Japan to cope with the current tough economic situation, a senior Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker said Tuesday."

Former airport to be huge solar plant
"The municipal government of Makurazaki, Kagoshima Prefecture, said Tuesday it will build a huge solar power plant after demolishing a local airport in March."

The important news here is not the plan to build a solar farm there, but that an airport opened in 1991 is already closing at the end of this year. -- RF

The right answer here is that Grantham and his detractors have all got it wrong. They are focusing on quantity, but it doesn't matter how much potash and phosphorus the planet has. There are two reasons for this. First, quantity is meaningless. The resources must be of sufficient quality to allow their economical extraction and processing. Second, because extraction, processing, and distribution all require energy, that energy must be sufficiently cheap and available to perform these tasks. Therefore, the question is not the amounts of these nutrients that exist, but whether they are of sufficient quality, and whether energy is cheap enough and available. There might well be 250 billion tons of potash, but I guarantee you that humanity will never recover all of it. It's surprising that these economics and investment gurus do not understand the concept of quality, and they certainly do not understand energy. This reminds one again of the fact that no one is extracting the thousands of tons of gold in the world's oceans, in spite of today's high prices. Despite the huge quantity there for the taking, the quality of the resource is too low. So here again, we can see that quality is the only thing that really matters. -- RF

Jim Kunstler on fraud, mainly that involving shale oil and gas. It's a good overview of the situation for readers unfamiliar with the real story. Of particular interest is that, like me, he thinks that Japan will probably be the first country to fall out of the industrial system. -- RF

"While the IEA study received significant attention from the mainstream media, most reporters do not understand the dynamics of oil reservoirs to ask the right questions and point out the possible weaknesses in the study."

There is certainly still lots of coal in the ground, but just as with every other resource, quality is everything. The same rules apply as outlined above with regard to fertilizers. Further, it's worth recalling that quality decline means society gets less net energy from each barrel of oil or each ton of coal. -- RF

"Oil companies can use electric generators to drill and complete wells in the dense rock formation called the Mississippi Lime, but the pumps needed to suck the oil to the surface require vast amounts of power… Power demand can vary widely, but one section with three oil wells and a water disposal pump can use nearly one megawatt of power, or about the amount needed to power 1,000 homes."

With this huge power consumption, you have to wonder about the net energy of these operations. And it pays to remember that much oil and natural gas production is dependent on grid power. -- RF

"But 20 months later, residents of towns and cities ravaged by the country's worst disaster in generations say the nation's biggest rebuilding effort since the aftermath of the World War Two has slipped off the political agenda."

The ugly truth is that the politicians know it's impossible to rebuild what the disaster wiped out. -- RF

"This week ITF inspectors have been boarding container ships carrying Walmart goods "to pass on warnings that the company may be experiencing industrial action in the run up to Christmas". The US retailer is said to be the single largest shipper in the world, controlling around 600,000teu per year."

Long delays at Airports across the US
"It's the busiest travel day of the year not just on the road, but in the air. Airports across the country are experiencing delays leaving some passengers spending the holiday in the terminal."

Harmony Gold says violent clashes at South Africa mine
"Harmony Gold said violent clashes erupted between rival unions at its Kusasalethu mine in South Africa on Thursday, raising concerns labor unrest was flaring again in Africa's largest economy days after a wave of wildcat strikes ended."

"Higher use of generators has pushed up the demand for diesel too. An official of an oil marketing company here told The Hindu that there is 30 per cent to 40 per cent increase during the last six months in the company's diesel despatch from its terminal here as against the average monthly increase of 10 per cent in off-take earlier, which was mainly for the automobile sector."

France faces twin tasks of ageing nuclear fleet, staff
"An ageing fleet of nuclear power plants and retirement of half of EDF's nuclear staff in the next 5 years are the main challenges the French nuclear safety watchdog is facing and will have to deal with, its new head said on Thursday."

Energy decline rears its ugly head here, too. The nuclear power system depends on fossil fuels to build and service nuke plants, and to educate and train its workers. Everything is falling apart. -- RF

But because wells in the Bakken shale formation peak and decline so quickly, one has to wonder if building pipelines is truly economical. In that respect, the following article is quite sobering. -- RF

Winter blackout: Govt proposes 350MW power cut for Karachi
"The government has mapped out a plan to cut power to the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) for three months beginning December, which means that Karachi is going to face eight-hour power outages daily during the winter season."

## China ##China Advances Launch of Crude-Oil Futures
"After years of slow progress on its planned launch of a crude-oil futures contract to give it greater influence in global oil pricing, China is now taking some bold strides to make it happen."